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Dutch study confirms cats and dogs can contract COVID-19
Utrecht University researchers performed swab tests on 310 pets from 196 households in which a person had been infected with COVID-19 within the last 200 days.
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Utrecht University in the Netherlands urged pet owners to stay away from their four-legged loved ones if they contract COVID-19. (REUTERS/Mike Blake)
Researchers in the Netherlands have conducted a study showing that dogs and cats can catch COVID-19 from their owners.
Utrecht University researchers performed swab tests on 310 pets from 196 households in which a person had been infected with COVID-19 within the last 200 days. Blood samples were also taken in order to examine the presence of antibodies indicating any previous contact with the virus.
The results showed that of the 310 pets, 4.2 percent (six cats and seven dogs) returned positive PCR results, while 17.4 percent (54 animals) tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies.
"If you have COVID-19, you should avoid contact with your cat or dog, just as you would do with other people," advised Els Broens from Utrecht University.
"The main concern is not the animals' health but the potential risk that pets could act as a reservoir of the virus and reintroduce it into the human population."
Currently, no proof of pet-to-owner transmission has been documented. Such virus pathways are complicated to catch as COVID-19 is still spreading with ease from human to human.
The majority of infected pets were asymptomatic or showed mild symptoms.
“Despite the rather high prevalence among pets from COVID-19 positive households in this study, it seems unlikely that pets play a role in the pandemic," Broens added.
The research was been presented to the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) but has not been published in a medical journal.
